“That’s his line, be it?” said the old farmer slowly. “Bit of a rascal it seems yo’ be? Don’t yo’ let me find you in my boosey pasture talking to no men o’ mine, or I’ll make yo’ smart a sight more than his lordship did!”
“Ay, that’s Ben’s line,” said the new-comer.
“You’re a liar!” Ben shrieked. “A dommed liar you be! I see you not half an hour agone coming out of Stubbs’s office! I know who told you to say that, you varmint! I’ll have the law of you!”
“Ben Bosham, the laborers’ friend!” the man retorted.
Ben was furious, for he was frightened. There was no feud so bitter in the ’forties as the feud between farmer and laborer. The laborer had no vote, he had lost his common rights, his wood, his cow-feed; he was famished, he was crushed by the new Poor Law, and so he was often in an ugly mood, as singed barns and burning stacks went to show. Bosham knew that he might flout the squires, and at worst be turned out of his holding; but woe betide him if he got the name of the laborers’ friend. Moreover, there was just so much truth in the accusation as made it dangerous. Ben and his brother eked out the profits of the dairy by occasional labor, and Ben had sometimes vapored in tap-rooms where he had better have held his tongue. He shrieked furiously, therefore, at the false witness, and even tried to reach him with his ash-plant. “Who be you?” he screamed. “You be a lawyer’s pup, you be! You’d ruin me, you would! Let me get a hold of you and I’ll put a mark on you! You be lying!”
“I don’t know about that,” said the big farmer slowly and weightily. “I’m feared yo’re a bit of a rascal, Ben.”
“Ay, and fine he’ll look in front of Stafford Gaol some morning!” said Willet. “At the end of a rope.”
On that in a happy moment for Ben, while he gaped for a retort and found none, two carriers’ vans, huge wooden vehicles festooned with rabbits and market-baskets and drawn by three horses abreast, lumbered through the crowd and scattered it. In a twinkling Ben was left alone, an angry man, aware that he had cut but a poor figure!
He had been frightened, too, and he resented it. He thirsted for some chance of setting himself right, of proving to others that he was a freeman and not as other men. And in the nick of time he saw a chance—if only he had the courage to rise to it. He saw moving towards him through the press a mail-phaeton and pair. On the box, caped and gloved, the pink of fashion, sat no less a person than his lordship himself. A servant in the well-known livery, a white coat with a blue collar, sat behind him.
The vans which had freed Ben blocked the great man’s way, and he was moving at a walk. All heads were bared as he passed, and he was acknowledging the courtesy with his whip when Ben stepped before the horses and lifted his hand. In an instant a hundred eyes were on the man and he knew that he had burned his boats. Bravado was now his only chance.